The Royal Families

The fortunes and fates of the European royal dynasties during the first half of the 20th century are traced through footage from a variety of episodes of the 1950s newsreel series Time to Remember. Narrator Lesley Sharp links sequences showing an era of war, revolution, assassination and abdication. Includes footage of Queen Victoria at her diamond jubilee celebrations; Victoria's funeral; Edward VII out hunting; Tsar Nicholas II of Russia; Victor Emmanuel of Italy; Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany; Franz Josef of Austria in Sarajevo; George V's coronation, silver jubilee and funeral; King Albert of Belgium; the future Edward VIII walking in Tokyo with the future Emperor Hirohito; King Alexander of Yugoslavia being assassinated in Marseilles in 1934; King Boris of Bulgaria; Edward VIII's 1936 abdication statement; George VI's coronation; and Queen Elizabeth II as a child.